Hi!

Safety in HMA
There has been an especially egregious rash of HMA injuries lately: one friend losing a chunk of her bicep through blunt force trauma; an internet-famous stabbing in a rapier tournament; a(nother) re-enactor getting a sword in their skull through an ocular (the eye-hole in a historical closed-face helmet). What do these all have in common? The idea that it’s the equipment that keeps you safe. I have two main takeaways:

1. Do not trust your equipment. Sport fencers can (these days, generally) because they are using incredibly light and very flexible weapons. It’s really difficult to put a lot of force into a target with a foil, epee, or sabre, but the move towards the sportification of HMA has lead to a similar idea of making the gear safe enough that you can just fight without regard to impact, like a sport fencer. Or a boxer. But boxers are famous for traumatic brain injuries…

There is no way to armour the human head well enough that it is safe to hit it multiple times with a steel bar. Full plate armour withstands a little; a Terry Tindill style mask withstands less. Something built on a fencing mask foundation withstands nothing. (Full marks if you can spot the precise Fiore reference there).

The only reasonably safe approach is to fence with control, so much so that a minor mishap can be absorbed by the equipment. There is no way to make it safe to hit someone hard with a four foot long steel bar. It doesn’t help matters that most modern fencing gauntlets don’t allow you to hold the sword correctly, which means that it’s almost impossible to control the impact except through gross motor control. It’s simply insane to expect to fence safely when you are not fully in control of your weapon.